Greek Town

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Chicago Neighborhood Tours visits Chinatown on its tour "Chinatown & Greek Town" Saturday. Guests will experience Chinatown with the help of guides who will highlight the history of the Chinese and Chinese-Americans in Chicago, while showcasing community traditions, along with contemporary life and culture. The tour will visit New Chinatown Square and Ping Tom Park, as well as various shops. Later the tour visits Greek Town, including a visit to area shops. The combined tour departs from the Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E. Randolph St., at 10 a.m. Saturday, returning at 2 p.m. It costs $25, $20 for seniors, students and children.

It's odd that we know so much about Greek food (thanks to the many "Greek Town" restaurants scattered across the country) but so little about where and how that food is grown and cooked in Greece. American diners can reel off the names of Cajun and Tex-Mex dishes, and may be well grounded in the regional cooking of Italy and France, but Greek cooking in this country remains a narrow repertoire of cliched preparations. It is regarded in much the same way Italian cooking was before spaghetti became pasta.

Marilyn T. Thompson was one of the fortunate people for whom the future was clear at an early age. While growing up in Berlin, Mass., she walked into her neighborhood library at age 5, looked around and told her parents that she would become a librarian. The declaration was a commitment rather than a rash or impulsive statement of a child. A resident of Woodridge for 37 years, Mrs. Thompson, 76, was a retired director of library services at George Williams College in Downers Grove, where she worked from 1964 to 1985.

Chicago's thriving Greek community -- Greek Town in particular -- has remained an untapped source for filmmakers since the late 1960s. This neglect has been partially addressed in Michael Achilles Nickles' "Do You Wanna Dance?," a low-budget independent feature shot in Chicago's Greek neighborhoods and financed in part by Hellenes eager to see a story about one of their own hit the silver screen. To that end, they have backed a tale that is based in fact, involving a big-hearted priest, a soul in distress and a community generous enough to embrace them both.

"You Don't Have to Be Greek" to enjoy the Greek Town Summer Festival `93 from 11 a.m. until 12 a.m. Sunday on Halsted Street (between Monroe and Van Buren Streets). All of the traditional aspects of Greek culture will be exhibited at the festival, along with more, to introduce a new generation of Chicagoans from all backgrounds to Greek Town. Entertainment includes: "Bad Boy Bill," a local radio hot mix DJ, professional folk dancing troupes, belly dancers, palm readers, fortune tellers, a matchmaker, clowns, Garfield Goose, circus acts and arts and crafts.

By Andrew A. Athens, National Chairman, United Hellenic American Congress | May 17, 1993

In reference to "As Chicago grows, its voice changes," you cite the vastly understated figures of the U.S. Census Bureau regarding the number of Greek-speaking Americans living in Illinois. Scholarly and more closely attuned sources point to a far greater number in the state, most of whom speak the Greek language. Although the Census Bureau counts the total of Greek speakers as 42,976, ethnic sociologist Alice Scourby relates in her book, "The Greek Americans," that there were 30,000 Greek Americans in Illinois in 1913, when the community was far smaller than it is today.

I, too, do not want to be a nit-picker, but the esteemed Mike Royko is wrong when he says in his Nov. 11 column that the area west of the expressway system was not a "Greek community." The confluence of the area known as Greek Town was at Halsted, Harrison and Blue Island Streets. This corner has been known historically as the "Greek Delta." Royko speaks that the area was occupied by the Italian-American community. True, but most of this was west beyond Halsted Street, and most of it still exists as "Little Italy" along Taylor Street.

By the time Louie Manolakos was a 16-year-old waiter in a pastry shop in his native Sparta, Greece, he knew what he wanted to do with his life. "Since I was a very young boy, I wanted to own my own business-a bakery or a restaurant," he says. "I always had that dream." Manolakos, 60, owns Greek Town's only bakery, the Pan Hellenic Pastry Shop, at 322 S. Halsted St., which he opened in 1973. "It's what I always wanted, and I`ve made a very good business of it," he says proudly.